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The Glaive is Destiny 2's newest weapon type. Introduced in the Witch Queen expansion, the Glaive serves as a Special melee weapon that can also kill targets from range. It packs a punch, can let you tank lethal amounts of damage, and you can target-farm them thanks to this expansion's weapon crafting system.

Related: Destiny 2: The Best Rolls For The New Season Of The Risen Weapons

Before you craft your first Glaive, it's important that you understand how it works. Glaives are a fairly advanced weapon type when compared to the rest of Destiny's arsenal, one that rewards players for playing intelligently. This guide will cover how to obtain a Glaive, how to use one, some synergies (and lack thereof) with Glaives, and give some general tips for getting the most out of them.

Crafting A Glaive

Destiny 2 Witch Queen Weapon Crafting Table

You will never find a Glaive when playing Destiny. Glaives can only be obtained from weapon crafting at the Enclave, effectively a Guardian's forge. You'll receive the Weapon Pattern for a Glaive when you complete the first Witch Queen campaign mission and be given a quest to forge one. The quest is rather straightforward, but you can follow our weapon crafting guide if the process seems confusing.

There are five Glaives as of The Witch Queen's release:

  • The Enigma – Unlocked during The Witch Queen campaign.
  • Lubrae's Ruin – Unlocked after completing The Witch Queen raid.
  • Edge of Concurrence – Hunter-exclusive Exotic Glaive.
  • Edge of Action – Titan-exclusive Exotic Glaive.
  • Edge of Intent – Warlock-exclusive Exotic Glaive.

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Using A Glaive

Destiny 2 Witch Queen Glaive

Since Glaives are melee weapons, one would assume that they behave similarly to Swords. This isn't completely true. Glaives can do the following:

  • Fire Button: Fire a projectile that deals moderate damage in a small area. Projectile damage charges your shield.
  • Aim Button: Project a shield in front of yourself, absorbing all frontal damage directed at you. You can shoot your Glaive while blocking.
  • Melee Button: Swing your Glaive at a nearby target. Press three times for a three-hit combo. This action does not consume ammo.

While your shield is active, your strafe speed is greatly reduced. Increasing your Mobility can mitigate this.

You will not spawn with any shield energy. This is extremely important, as it means you'll need to damage targets with your projectiles to unlock the Glaive's defensive capabilities. And for a weapon that relies heavily on melee kills, you'll always want shield energy to absorb enemy attacks.

The gameplay loop of the Glaive is a little strange but fairly simple:

  • Fire projectiles -> use the shield to close the gap -> melee -> repeat

Using the Glaive as just another Sword will get you killed. You need to utilize this weapon's ranged attacks to unlock blocking, and that is what allows you to safely use the Glaive's melee attacks in harder content. That might sound strenuous, yet the Glaive's raw damage output and nigh-impervious shield make this loop incredibly rewarding to pull off. No other weapon in Destiny can absorb lethal amounts of damage, clear out waves of enemies with no ammo, and kill targets from a distance at the same time—not even Swords.

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Related: Destiny 2 The Witch Queen: Season Of The Risen War Table Guide

Artifact Mods

Destiny 2 Season of the Risen Synaptic Spear Artifact

The Glaive is Season of the Risen's signature, meta-defining weapon. While it gets nothing near the strength of Particle Deconstruction, Glaives do have some potent mods we'll quickly mention:

  • Unstoppable Glaive: Allows Glaives to stun Unstoppable Champions in endgame content.
  • Suppressing Glaive: Every Glaive hit, melee or projectile, suppresses targets. This makes the Glaive much safer to use.
  • Suppressive Darkness: Suppression also inflicts weaken, something your Glaive can now do.

With these mods, your Glaive can stagger targets with ease, prevent enemies from damaging you outright, and it can even inflict weaken. This is an incredibly powerful synergy that gets out of control for Nightstalkers, allowing them to go invisible using just their Glaive and the Stylish Execution Aspect.

What Doesn't Work

As great as these mods are, Glaives have some exceptions that prevent certain builds and synergies from working.

  • Glaive melee kills don't count as melee kills. This means Grave Robber doesn't work. For whatever reason, Void 3.0 Fragments are the exception to this rule.
  • Melee kills with the Glaive do not activate melee-related armor mods like Hands-On or Striking Light.
  • Melee kills cannot spawn Elemental Wells.
  • Exotics that buff melee damage don't buff Glaive melee attacks.

Essentially, any mod that buffs your weapons will only benefit your Glaive's projectile attacks.

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Glaive Tips

Destiny 2 The Enigma Crafted Glaive
  • Consider using an auto-loading effect like Echo of Domineering to bypass the Glaive's lengthy reload animation.
  • Deploy your shield whenever an attack is coming, then immediately drop your shield to achieve full strafe speed again.
  • Glaives pair nicely with devour or the Echo of Leeching Fragment.
  • Firing projectiles while using your shield will extend its duration.

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Next: Destiny 2: The Witch Queen Complete Guide And Walkthrough